The start for women’s cricket in Uganda was quite slow when Susan Luswata took on a handful of girls back in 2001.

Nearly two decades later, the senior women’s national women’s team is now set to grace the grand stage of the game.Yesterday, the Lady Cricket Cranes were flagged for their biggest assignment ever to Netherlands for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier due July 7-14.

“It is a privilege to be here and we are ready to take on this big chance,” skipper Kevin Awino, said moments after receiving the flag from National Council of Sports general secretary David Katende and former Uganda Cricket Association (UCA) board member Jackson Kavuma.

This moment could have come earlier for Uganda but the nation had lived in the shadow of Zimbabwe and Namibia for long.

RankedBut now ranked second behind South Africa on the continent and 18th overall in the ICC global standings, there is all optimism heading to Netherlands.

“I believe we have done enough and we are ready to mingle with the big sides,” offered star player Gertrude Candiru who was MVP when Uganda won the Africa T20s last September to earn the Dutch ticket.

The country’s preparations had the Lady Cricket Cranes whitewash Tanzania 6-0 away and as well won the Zimbabwe T20 Women’s tourney in May.

The story is sweeter even with long-serving members like Franklyn Najjumba, Consy Aweko and Carol Namugenyi in the side that will face Scotland, 2016 Qualifier champions Ireland and Thailand in Group B at the eight-nation tournament.

The top two face those from Group A that includes Bangladesh, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea and UAE in the semi-finals with the tournament finalists qualifying for the Women’s T20 World Cup in West Indies come November.

Kampala. Ordinarily, there is a hangover that breeds after one attains an achievement.But for the Uganda national women’s cricket team, it must have been a brief one after they garnered the title at the ICC Africa Women’s Twenty20 World Cup Qualifiers in Windhoek, Namibia last September.

In December, victorious coach Grace Mutyagaba and his superior Francis Otieno embarked on preparations for the ICC Global T20 Qualifier which bowls off July 3-14 in Netherlands.The team broke off for the festive season on December 22, resumed training on January 8 and yesterday, the selected 14 players flew out to Dar-es-Salaam for a build-up tour against hosts Tanzania.

“This gives players a different challenge,” coach Otieno explained the importance of the trip to the coastal city moments after the team had been flagged off by Uganda Cricket Association (UCA) administrator Martin Ondeko on Friday.

The team will play six T20 matches against Tanzania beginning today until Wednesday. Normally, Uganda tours Kenya, so why the change?“We played Kenya before Dubai (2016) and Namibia (2017) trips. So this is a change is menu for the players. And besides, Tanzania is such a strong side that they have something we can pick from them,” Otieno said.

But their voids will be filled by returning Claire Mushakamba as well as eager and enterprising debutants Irene Alumo, Evelyn Anyipo and Esther Ilukor.In July, Uganda will be featuring at the Global Qualifier alongside Thailand, UAE, Scotland, Papua New Guinea, Ireland, Bangladesh and the Dutch for the first time.

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Having been a ‘victim’ of the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s security drive, with global showpieces being taken away from Uganda twice, Uganda Cricket Association (UCA) is ensuring they are not third time unlucky.

In August 2010, ICC Security Manager Sean Carroll from Australia ruled against Uganda hosting a must-win Intercontinental Shield match against Namibia following two bomb blasts that rocked Kampala on July 11. Uganda went on to comprehensively lose that first-class match by 10 wickets in Windhoek.

Then in October 2014, UCA looked on helplessly as more games were taken away from them with two ‘powerful’ participating nations USA and Bermuda allegedly at the forefront of pressurising ICC to change venue. Both countries from the ICC Americas Region insisted that Uganda was not safe to host the ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Division III tournament, once again citing insecurity because of the Al-Shabaab terror alerts then.

In the end, the alerts turned out to be mere scares and justice was served as Uganda finished second at the meet hosted by Malaysia and forthwith progressed to Division II.

Current stateSince ICC Development and Cricket Operations Officer Nigel Mascarenhas wrote to UCA on November 20 revealing that Uganda’s bid had bettered that of Canada and Malaysia to host this year’s event, UCA are seizing every opportunity to make it count this time.

When ICC sent two of its officials Sean Norris (Security Manager) and Gurjit Singh (Development Events Manager) on a four-day working visit last week, UCA worked overtime to ensure the pair give a good review of Uganda when presenting the final reports to their bosses in Dubai, UAE.

UCA chairman Richard Mwami pulled the strings further by squeezing in a ‘priceless’ meeting between the ICC officials with the Minister of Sports and Education Janet Museveni at the State House in Nakasero last Friday.

The First Lady has now pumped up the volume in the cricket fraternity with a couple of tweets on her social media page to prove that UCA have government’s full backing to pull off a successful event.

“The ICC delegation was in the country to ascertain Uganda’s sustainability to host the WCL Tournament,” read one of her tweets.

The one that went viral goes: “We’re ready to host the ICC tournament and we want to see cricket in Uganda revived. Uganda can be banked on to host the tournament.” Prior to meeting Minister, Norris and Singh also met the Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, Assistant Inspector General of Police (IGP) Andrew Sorowen alongside several security firms and visited social amenities like Nakasero Hospital plus inspecting the three ovals; Entebbe, Kyambogo and Lugogo, where the tournament will be played.

And with the backing from the highest of hierarchies in Uganda, UCA will, now, not only be hoping to host an incident-free event but also look to successfully woo more sponsors on board to bolster the growth of the gentleman’s game here.

Lady Cricket Cranes coaches Frank Nsubuga and Jackson Ogwang will be looking to make quick postmortems for future reference after Uganda failed in their attempt to qualify for the 2016 ICC Women’s World T20 Trophy in India.

Looking to finish among the top two countries at the ongoing continental showpiece in Benoni - South Africa, Uganda could only garner two victories and three loses enroute to a fourth-place finish before today’s closing round of playoff finals.

Uganda started off the decisive round impressively with a five-wicket win Kenya in the East African derby but collapsed against the mighty South Africa. Christine Aryemo was the star hitting a quick-fire 22 off 21 as Uganda chased down Kenya set score of 56 for 7 in 16.2 overs. Justine Musubika and Frankline Najjumba were the architects of the collapse with two wickets apiece.

But South Africa set 100 and the total proved a little too much as the Ugandans got themselves in a rut before managing 64all out in 18.4 overs. Today, the ladies will be looking to end on a high in the third place playoff against Tanzania.

Back home, a star-studded Takashinga XI from Zimbabwe start their five-match series Tour to Uganda without explosive opening batsman Stuart Matsikenyeri.

“We got confirmation from their coach Steve that Matsikenyeri got injured during the weekend and is out of the tour but the rest is as planned. The tour should be a big success,” confirmed UCA Development Officer Henry Okecho.

Lanky Richard Okia will captain the Uganda ‘A’ side against the touring Zimbabweans in a 50-over duel at Lugogo Oval this morning. Elsewhere, UCA is leaving nothing to chance despite the ICC U-19 World Cup qualifiers being two months away.

UCA has entered the national U-19 team into an East Africa U-19 Tri-Series tournament that bowls off today in Nairobi. Seven players yesterday joined five others already in Nairobi for an ICC sanctioned training programme for the tournament that includes Kenya and Tanzania. Kenya will field two teams for the tourney that ends December 22.